GOOD MORNING and welcome to Morning Tech, your chosen platform in the smart home of EU tech politics and policy.

— WHAT’S HAPPENING

TARIFF ELIMINATION: The EU, U.S., China and many other members of the World Trade Organization have agreed to end import taxes on more than 200 tech products, ranging from video-game consoles and headphones to semiconductors and medical equipment. The Commission said in a statement that the deal will boost Europe’s digital economy by providing new market access for many local companies. The agreement marks an expansion, originally proposed by the EU, of the 1996 Information Technology Agreement. Although many countries have agreed to the new items on the no-tariff list, notable holdouts include South Korea, India and Brazil. Tariffs for the listed products should be eliminated by mid-2019, according to the current roadmap, though the Commission noted: “For sensitive products longer phase-out periods will be negotiated to give industry time to adapt to a zero-tariff environment.” http://bit.ly/1RY5wAw

OETTINGER ON FAIRNESS: Digi-commish Günther Oettinger has questioned why people posting information on the Internet should not have to abide by the same “fairness” obligations as journalists do. In a weekend article for the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung, he wrote: “Everyone should of course be able to freely speak their mind, but at the same time the individual rights of each citizen should be respected, for example in the case of reputational damage.” Oettinger also described the Google search antitrust case as a “defensive” move on the EU’s part, and urged the creation of a “growth-friendly environment” to stimulate European rivals to the U.S. giant. http://bit.ly/1Or6bEw

BRITISH SURVEILLANCE: British government lawyers have claimed the so-called Wilson doctrine, which stops the security services from spying on peers and members of parliament, is no longer practical. The half-century-old convention is not legally enforceable and cannot constrain intelligence agencies, James Eadie QC told the investigatory powers tribunal (IPT), according to The Guardian. From that piece: “The complaint at the IPT is being brought by the Green party parliamentarians Caroline Lucas and Lady Jones, and the former Respect MP George Galloway, who argue that their communications must have been intercepted by the sort of programs exposed by the CIA whistleblower Edward Snowden.” The parliamentarians are trying to get the tribunal to say they are shielded from surveillance, as Home Secretary Theresa May promised last year. It already emerged earlier in the hearing that spy agency GCHQ has quietly changed its rules to remove Wilson-doctrine protection from members of the Scottish Parliament. According to Eadie, “there is so much data flowing along the pipe” that it is impossible to avoid spying on parliamentarians. http://bit.ly/1Mplsr2

FRENCH SURVEILLANCE: France’s new surveillance law has cleared the constitutional court, losing a couple of clauses along the way. French authorities won’t be able to conduct “emergency” operations without approval, and a clause relating to international surveillance was also taken out. But authorities will be able to force communications providers to retain customer metadata about who contacted whom and when, and they will be able to launch surveillance on people without judicial approval, instead needing a nod only from a new supervisory body. In special circumstances, they will also be able to bug people’s homes and computers, and to use “IMSI catcher” devices to record all phone, Internet and text-messaging conversations in a given area. http://reut.rs/1KnYpKV

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL said the French intelligence bill was wildly disproportionate and “will deal a major blow to human rights in France.” The United Nations Committee for Human Rights also issued a report on Friday saying the bill “grants overly broad powers for very intrusive surveillance on the basis of vast and badly defined objectives.” http://bit.ly/1OClriN

NOKIA ALCATEL-LUCENT MERGER: Nokia’s €15.6 billion takeover of Alcatel-Lucent has won the approval of the Commission, which said the merger would not raise competition concerns. The Commission noted that Nokia’s telecoms network business was stronger in Europe, and Alcatel-Lucent’s in North America. It added: “Several other strong players are active on the market: Ericsson and Huawei, which together with Nokia are the main players in Europe, along with the Chinese ZTE and the Korean Samsung.” The Finnish and Franco-American firms also said Friday that they had gained approval from regulators in Albania, Canada, Colombia and Russia, adding to existing green lights from the U.S., Brazil and Serbia. That leaves China, where the state is a 50 percent stakeholder in Alcatel-Lucent Shanghai Bell. http://bit.ly/1OpZEKc

REGULATORY CAPTURE: A report from the Bruegel research institute has accused the Commission of regulatory capture in the case of Germany’s Telefonica-E-Plus merger. Economists Mario Mariniello, Damien Neven and Jorge Padilla said EU countries have been pressuring the Commission to take a lenient approach to consolidation in the telecoms market. They wrote: “There are good indications that such political pressure led the Commission to impose milder clearance conditions that it would have otherwise. For example, the Commission was heavily criticized by national regulators over the Telefonica/E-Plus merger in Germany. In that case, the Commission identified a significant potential harm because of the removal of an aggressive network operator from the market, particularly for the lower-end pre-paid segment. The Commission however cleared the merger with an apparently weak remedy: the parties had to grant access to less than half of the capacity that was previously used by E-Plus to exert a competitive constraint on Telefonica.” http://bit.ly/1HOdWmo

HACKED CAR RECALL: You may recall (pardon the pun) a Wired story that I flagged up last week, showing how hackers could commandeer or kill many functions, such as the brakes, of Fiat Chrysler’s connected cars. The firm has now announced a recall of 1.4 million vehicles in the U.S. so it can update the software. Chrysler said it had also tweaked its networks to stop anyone gaining unauthorized access to vehicles’ systems, adding that hacking its vulnerable vehicles was a “criminal action.” http://bit.ly/1VFkdIa

FINAL FIVE: As we noted last week, wireless or satellite rather than wired technology is likely to provide the solution for rolling out super-fast broadband to the “final 5 percent” of British citizens — people in remote areas where fiber will not be financially viable. But how will this be funded? The BBC reports that the U.K. government hasn’t yet decided whether to draw on general taxation or stick a levy on broadband providers, but is veering towards the latter option. That might mean an extra £1 (€1.41) on everyone’s monthly broadband bills. http://bbc.in/1SFVBuv

AMAZON ON TOP: Amazon has overtaken Walmart as the most valuable retail company in the world, after its latest quarterly results prompted an 18 percent rise in its share price. The surge took Amazon to a valuation of around $270 billion (€247 billion) and added $7 billion to the personal fortune of founder Jeff Bezos. What caused the better-than-expected results? Largely the runaway success of Amazon Web Services, the firm’s cloud division that provides infrastructure for myriad startups. From The Guardian’s report: “This is the second quarter since Amazon began disclosing revenue and operating profit for AWS and for the second time, the growth for this division surprised Wall Street analysts.” In the first quarter, AWS revenue was up 49 percent from 2014. In the second quarter, it was up 81 percent year-over-year. http://bit.ly/1RX0aps

SMART HOME PLATFORM WARS: Apple has pulled Google’s Nest products from its online and retail stores. Nest, which makes smart thermostats, smoke detectors and security cameras, was founded by iPod designer Tony Fadell. Google bought the company last year, and is now making a big smart home push. So is Apple, though, and the iPhone firm has just started stocking smart thermostats that are compatible with its HomeKit platform. According to Re/Code, Nest is adamant that its products will be back on Apple’s shelves in “the coming weeks.” http://on.recode.net/1Koi65c

— WHAT’S COMING

CAR DATA DEALS: Car insurance companies are increasingly encouraging customers to agree to being tracked, in exchange for cheaper premiums. But that creates a whole lot of data, which the insurers see as a gold mine. According to Bloomberg, U.S. insurer Allstate is keen to sell drivers’ location data to retailers and restaurants that might want to target those people with local advertising. This would put the insurers in competition with the likes of Google, which are trying to do the same thing with smartphone-derived location data. In both cases, people are paying for “free” or cheap services with their privacy. http://bloom.bg/1DBRE35

WHAT’S GOING: Cisco said Friday it would discontinue selling its data storage hardware, branded Invicta, as part of recent efforts to narrow its focus on the most lucrative businesses.